Watering food plots

How can I water my food plots? It was suppose to rain Sunday but never did. Was suppose to rain tomorrow but It changed

It takes a lot of water to do much good. 27154 gallons of water, to cover an acre, 1" deep.

Or 5431- 5 gallon buckets. You need to learn to play nice with mother nature. She can be very cruel sometimes.

Big heavy duty dual axle trailer.
Large agri poly chem tank mounted to tailer.
Gasoline powered pump.
Fireman's hose.
Availability to draw water from a source.

I've seen it done. When nobody else had plots due to drought, the fellas who improvised had lush, green, kickin plots.

The food plots aren't terribly big. I have a small feeding food plot back in some thick pines and a bigger food plot on the power line. Would the morning dew help germinate? If it matters I have a sprayer that I could out water in and a 10 gallon jug thing and a couple smaller 2 gallon jugs

I have 3 approx. one-half acre food plots that need water. Two are in the creek bottom and came up but are getting dry now(the creek is dry now). One is on the hillside and was dry when I planted and hasn't come up yet. It was supposed to rain after I planted but we got 1/10 in. I have a pond within 100 yards of 2 of them. The pond is full for the first time ever that I needed to water. In previous years when I needed to irrigate the pond was always dry. I have a 2" gasoline driven pump and plenty of 2" hose and a fire nozzle. If I don't get rain tomorrow(we have 30% chance here Tues) I am going to try to water some Wednesday.
I watered a food plot once before(a different location) because it was too dry to plow up. I used a different pump which got the job done but didn't really have enough pressure. I have a higher pressure pump now but I have never used it before. If I go through with this I will try to get some pictures and post results on here.

Here are some examples I pulled. I'm sure any could be adapted to where you lay out garden hose and a sprinkler head.

I wait a bit later to plant and never needed to water. The dew will keep a plot going after its up, I dont know it its enough for germination.

I use a tractor and a nurse tank with home made fan nozzles, works pretty good

I got one plot watered, I will try to get pictures on soon. It wore me out, it will be next week before I can do the other as I am very tired and very busy.

I finally got the time and energy(barely) to try to upload some pictures of my food plot irrigation. I have had the pump for years but never cranked the engine. I bought it to use on my last hunting club but layoffs forced me to quit that club. I now hunt on a relative's property but the ponds were always dry when I needed to water, until this year. The pump was bought at Northern Tool and the gasoline engine was bought at Harbor Freight. It is a 6.5 H. P. I built a frame for it with wheels on it. I sprayed water for over 2 hours. I used buckets to get an estimate of how much water I was putting out. I was trying to put 1" of water on it. I sprayed until it puddled up. The pump is rated at 130 gpm but I pumped through 230' of 2" hose and a fire nozzle so it lost some capacity. I was pumping from a small pond side of a big pond and lowered the water level in the pond about 2'. Already the food plot looks better and the deer are hitting it hard.
By the time I finished that nozzle weighed about 200 pounds. I believe that too much of irrigating like I did would kill an old man.

You earned your pay that day!!!! The critters will appreciate it!!!

Canuck5 said:

You earned your pay that day!!!! The critters will appreciate it!!!

Click to expand...

Yes. Hunted there twice and killed 3 does already. A few years ago we killed 10 deer at this plot with several misses. It looks like if they don't eat it all up they may stomp it to death.

LOL!! With things as dry as they are in my area, I know they'd appreciate it!!!